[Exclusive] POSCO, First in Global Steel Industry to Experiment... Implementing 4-Day Workweek Starting the 22nd

Opportunities for Self-Development through Efficient Workday Design
Kim Hak-dong, POSCO Vice Chairman, "Organizational Culture Innovation"

POSCO will implement a four-day workweek starting next week. POSCO is the first steel company in the world to introduce a four-day workweek among steelmakers that must operate blast furnaces and factories 24 hours a day.

POSCO Building, Yeoksam-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul. Photo by Younghan Heo younghan@

According to the industry on the 18th, POSCO will implement a biweekly four-day workweek for office workers starting from the 22nd.

Currently, POSCO employees work an average of 40 hours per week from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday. Since last year, POSCO has introduced a flexible working hours system that allows employees to autonomously choose their working hours according to the work conditions of each department.

The newly implemented four-day workweek involves working one extra hour on 8 out of 10 working days over two weeks and taking every other Friday off. The system will start on the 22nd, with the first holiday falling on February 2.

Employees can now autonomously decide their working hours and holidays by utilizing either the four-day workweek or the flexible working hours system.

Production workers at Pohang and Gwangyang steelworks will maintain the existing four-shift, two-team rotation system.

POSCO management and labor unions agreed last November during wage and collective bargaining negotiations to introduce a biweekly four-day workweek.

POSCO expects that implementing the four-day workweek will allow for more efficient scheduling of workdays, increasing opportunities for employees to engage in self-development and enhance their capabilities.

As POSCO is the first among the POSCO Group to adopt the four-day workweek, it is anticipated that other affiliates will also begin discussions to change their working systems.

Kim Hak-dong, Vice Chairman of POSCO, emphasized, "Corporate culture is the source of creating a sustainable tomorrow," adding, "We will continuously communicate and create a good workplace to produce results based on autonomy and creativity through organizational culture innovation."